


Fractured

by Languidly



Category: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles - All Media Types
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-13
Updated: 2020-12-22
Packaged: 2021-03-04 17:47:15
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 17,051
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25250347
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Languidly/pseuds/Languidly
Summary: Their faces were inches apart, and Raphaelfeltthe moment Leonardo came back, hard thighs loosening their death-grip on his sides, arms slacking and beginning to tremble, before he whispered faintly, “Raph...you’re okay?”
Relationships: Leonardo/Raphael (TMNT)
Comments: 64
Kudos: 201





	1. Chapter 1

When Leonardo snapped, it was with an audible crack, and the creature’s brains - or guts, Raphael couldn’t really tell - spilled out onto Raphael’s face from where it had been poised above him, a second away from successfully worming its silvery, pulsating tendrils into his nose and mouth. 

He looked up through the carnage of its split head - body? - queasy and gasping from the near-miss, and Leonardo looked _through_ him, as though he didn’t see Raphael there. Not so much as his usual grin, no jibe about how he was saving Raphael’s ass again. Nothing.

Distantly, Raphael could hear Donatello’s voice shrieking at them through the earpiece, _Get out of there, you guys!_ and see the blur that was Michelangelo firing up his skateboard, dodging more of the slimy tendrils that seemed to gather in a glittering disco ball before coalescing into one giant gray thing. But he couldn’t look away from Leonardo, who had turned and was hurtling himself towards the center of the fight, eyes blazing and swords drawn not to disable, but to _kill_.

He hauled himself to his feet, fighting the urge to gag and wiping the hot gunk from his face with the back of his hand. His weapons had been flung aside when the creature had slammed into him; he could see one sai now, embedded in a crate on the far end of the warehouse. He’d have to cross more of the flailing strands to get to it, there was no choice - these were enemies that could not be defeated without a sharp edge. Trying to hit them with fists and kicks had been like punching water, as he’d discovered too late. Steeling himself, Raphael leapt across one stray groping tendril and rolled under another, cursing colorfully as he pushed himself forward. 

When Donatello had detected an extraordinary energy pulse earlier, he’d announced it portentously: that it could well be a portal opening, and then they had of course been obligated to check it out. It hadn’t been a full year since Krang had attempted to come to Earth with the Technodrome, and portal technology wasn’t all that common to begin with, so there was a good chance that someone, somewhere, had decided it was a great idea to bring an alien warlord back. Donatello had stayed behind to monitor the energy pulse from the lair and try to track where it was coming from, while the rest of them had headed for the warehouse where the pulse had been located.

As a team, they’d more or less had the same expectation, and had therefore been completely blindsided by the appearance of these...these ghastly, grayish-translucent wavy things, like the endless tentacles of a gigantic squid that had no head, and that seemed to gather and split again with no real purpose except to grab whatever it could find and smack it, hard and repeatedly. Raphael had taken it upon himself to smack back as good as he could give, but he’d only succeeded in taking some hard impact and then getting squelched before Leonardo had cut in and saved him, which would have been as annoying as usual if Leonardo didn’t seem to have gone off the deep end.

The heaving gray mass in the middle of the room lifted itself and _shuddered_ , and Raphael barely ducked in time as it toppled and tore itself in half under its own weight, crashing into the ground with a gaping, inhuman moan. Behind it, Leonardo stood, purplish-gray fluids oozing down both swords, covering his arms up to his shoulders and splattered across his face. His mouth was a hard line, jaw clenched. 

_Guys, you got it, scanners picking up diminishing life signs-_ it was Donatello, through a loud crackle of static that was not enough to muffle the relief in his voice. _Let’s get a sample of that thing so we can figure out what it is._

Michelangelo had slumped to the ground, looking green even through his natural skin tone, his nunchucks covered in goo. He looked up at Raphael pleadingly. 

Raphael sighed, yanking his sai out of the crate and tapping the button on his earpiece to reply, “Copy that, Donny.” He rummaged through his pack for a vial and then crouched down near the smallest tendril he could see, which was still twitching defiantly. Cutting off a small piece, he bottled it carefully, but hesitated before opening up his pack again, because the last thing he wanted was a bit of alien squirming about all his stuff...

“Uh, Raph?” Michelangelo had tossed his nunchucks away from him with a sniff, and was now trudging over. “Where’d Leo go?”

He looked over at the last place he’d seen Leonardo and fought the urge to swear. “Mikey, take this back to the lair now.” He shoved the vial at Michelangelo, cutting off any protest with a gentle thump to his youngest brother’s head. “I’ll look for him.”

He didn’t know if Mikey had seen, but...there had been something off about their eldest. This Leonardo had been half-savage, slicing without restraint. Granted, they’d also been ambushed by otherworldly creatures who’d been about to have Raphael’s brain for dinner, but that unholy rage in his Fearless Leader’s eyes had made the bottom of Raphael’s stomach drop, just a little bit, and uneasiness was now sweeping down his spine as he scanned the surrounding buildings before dropping his gaze to the ground.

A bloody trail of footprints. Great.

Five rooftops later, Raphael found himself on top of another warehouse, this one overlooking the docks. Leonardo’s footprints were fading and almost invisible now, the blood having dried off as he moved. Raphael jumped, landing with a soft thud, eyes searching through the darkness.

There were steps leading down to the water. He walked past and stopped short, heart suddenly hammering, because those were Leonardo’s swords and his headband on the last step, and surely Leonardo hadn’t really gone crazy-

Then his brother’s head broke the surface of the water, and Raphael stumbled back automatically, because this was still not Leonardo; that murderous light in narrowed blue eyes was looking right _through_ him again. “Leo?” he croaked, suddenly aware that he only had the one sai with him. “What- ya- ” 

Leonardo pulled himself onto the steps in one smooth movement, dripping wet. One moment he was there, 10 feet away.

The next moment, he was barreling into Raphael with such force that Raphael was shoved back hard onto the pavement, all the air knocked out of him in a gasp. He didn’t even manage to get out another word before fists were raining down on him, ferocious and stinging. A punch caught him in the jaw, smashing his cheek and sending bright spots into his vision. Leonardo’s strong thighs were clamping down agonizingly tightly around his center, locking him into place on the ground and Raphael was so shocked that he didn’t even think about it, and swung right back in the space of a breath-

Big mistake. Leonardo dodged and _snarled_ , smashing Raphael’s arm away and slamming his wrist to the ground. Falling forward, he bit down hard at the soft join of Raphael’s neck and shoulder, dragging his teeth away in a fiery circle of pain, and if Raphael thought he had felt sick earlier then he was definitely nauseous now, staring up at his blood dripping from Leonardo’s lips, completely stunned. 

He wouldn’t be able to fight Leonardo, not like this, unless he was planning to seriously injure or even kill his brother, and that he couldn’t do.

“Leo,” he kept his voice even, willing his arms to fall to his sides, wrestling the instincts that screamed at him to brace, defend, do anything. “Leo, it’s me, Raph.” 

Leonardo shook his head furiously, eyes blind, fists already raised again and entire body coiled like a spring, ready to attack. This close, Raphael could see the pulse in his brother’s throat jumping wildly. 

“Leo,” he had no idea what he was doing, could only murmur over and over, as reassuringly as he could manage while ignoring the sticky trail of blood oozing down his shoulder. Fists slammed down on either side of his head before thick fingers curled dangerously around his throat, and now he had to fight the added, urgent impulse to buck Leonardo off so he could _breathe_. He flexed his hands still with stubborn determination. “Leo, wake up.”

The vise around his chest tightened. Raphael fought off a wave of dizziness because if he blacked out here, now, where was Leonardo going to go? “Leo,” he tried once more, trying to relax his body, tamping down on a growing panic as the breath stifled in his lungs. “Leo, there’s no danger anymore. You’re fine. We’re fine.”

Leonardo’s breathing was harsh, dragging out of him in ragged gasps that sounded painful. He shook his head furiously, stared down at Raphael, and then slowly, slowly blinked. Once. Twice. 

Finally, finally, his eyes focused on Raphael. 

Their faces were inches apart, and Raphael _felt_ the moment Leonardo came back, hard thighs loosening their death-grip on his sides, arms slacking and beginning to tremble, before he whispered faintly, “Raph...you’re okay?”

Raphael closed his eyes and gulped desperately for air; the relief was so strong that he felt like passing out. He reached up with a hand to the back of Leonardo’s head, pausing warily for a bit, before lightly pressing their foreheads together. 

“Yea. I’m okay.”

Leonardo pulled back after a long moment; fingers ghosted gently over his face. “Did- did I do tha- ”

“S’was my fault,” Raphael mumbled. “Got in the way. You were in the zone, or something.”

They headed back towards the lair in silence after that, Raphael taking the lead, Leonardo following three steps behind, cleaned swords loosely clasped in one hand. He’d thrown the bloody headband away as soon as they’d left the docks. When Raphael glanced back at his brother out of the corner of his eye, he caught Leonardo looking him over sidelong for injuries, as he always did after a fight. It helped push away the memory of the Leonardo he hadn’t recognized, and who hadn’t recognized him in return.

Just before they arrived home, a few steps away in the dark of the tunnel, Leonardo stopped, and Raphael tensed immediately. “Leo..?”

His brother stared at him, and then one hand came up slowly, hovering over his face, before settling gently on his bruised left cheek. Blue eyes darted to the bite wound in his shoulder, already crusting over. 

Raphael groaned inwardly. What could he say? Donny would have known how to offer comfort with just the right amount of sensitivity. Mikey would have made a joke, tempered with one of his warm smiles. Raphael felt as though he was suddenly standing on a ticking time bomb, because talking had never been his strong suit, not unless he was being angry about it. But he couldn’t be angry here, not when Leonardo had just come back from whatever precipice he’d been standing at, and not when Raphael was still thankful that his brother had, well, not _killed_ him in a fit of madness.

“I’m okay,” he said gruffly after a while, tapping Leonardo’s hand with a finger that he hoped conveyed confidence. “Really.” There would be no way to hide the knuckle-print on his face but the bite would be easily covered with a bandage, because there was no way Raphael was going to be up for explaining that to anyone. He pulled a corner of his bandana over it for the moment, as casually as he could with his brother still eyeing him.

Leonardo’s eyes had softened; he nodded once, then let go.

They entered the lair, and Michelangelo drew up to Raphael with an exaggerated snort, holding his nose and complaining dramatically about the smell of dried alien guts. Donatello was already glued to his chair in the lab, tapping at his computer with the intensity of a researcher about to discover the secrets of the universe, distractedly announcing that the alien specimen had been placed in the mass spectrometer. The refangled machine was already whirring busily. 

Leonardo disappeared without a word into his room. Raphael looked at the closed door, and then decided thinking further could wait until after a shower.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hammering out as much of this fic as I can before vacation.  
> And why yes, there is explicit content in this chapter.

They never actually got around to talking more about what had happened, which suited Raphael just fine except that the next time Leonardo snapped, Raphael could actually _sense_ it.

They’d followed the isotopic signature that Donatello had analyzed from the alien specimen, aboard a nondescript cargo ship that had been berthed behind a row of abandoned fishing shacks. It had been oddly silent below deck, and Raphael had been about to radio Donatello and ask if he’d gotten the wrong ship when a thick, gluey tendril had whipped around his legs and dragged him into the next room. 

He’d had enough time to yelp out a warning, saw Leonardo’s head whip around from further down the corridor before Raphael was abruptly choking, the viscid creature wrapping around him like an anaconda and drowning him in its insides. Raphael struggled violently, trying to reach for a sai, a knife, anything to tear the alien away from his face because he was running out of air-

Flickers of alarm suddenly crawled down his back, as a different menace that he could only distantly perceive appeared outside of his alien prison. The creature howled as it tightened its grip on him, twisting to face the new threat, and the darkness abruptly lightened, as though layers had been cut away; Raphael surged forward against his bonds, gritting his teeth, and then he burst out of the creature as it moaned and writhed in two - no, four - pieces on the ground.

Leonardo wasn’t even in the room anymore. 

Raphael stumbled to the doorway, coughing to clear his lungs and fumbling for his sai. His brother was on a _rampage_ as the creatures piled on him, flinging them aside in an unbroken dance of whirling momentum and slicing with the precision of propeller blades, eyes fiercely bright and unfocused. Raphael felt his breath slip, pawing at his belt for his communicator and managing to nearly drop it with his mucky hands. 

“Donny!” he hissed, hoping fervently that the goo hadn’t damaged it. “Donny, Mikey, come in!”

His younger brothers had been checking the top deck, and Raphael suddenly felt his stomach turn. Had they also been attacked? 

“...Raph?” it was Michelangelo, quizzical and relaxed. “Whas’ goin’ on down there, man- ”

“We’ve been ambushed!” Raphael barked, because the relief had disappeared in an instant and was quickly turning to dread. “Leo’s- ”

The words died in his throat. What should he do? What if Leonardo didn’t recognize them, as he hadn’t recognized Raphael the other night? But Leonardo and Michelangelo had managed a patrol the other night without any issues, they’d even put out a brawling dispute with the Purple Dragons...

The creatures were rushing out; they would overwhelm Leonardo and him both in a matter of moments and Raphael made a split-second decision and prayed things would be different. “Come down here!”

In the vortex of ducking, slicing, jumping and rolling, Raphael had to wipe his eyes and jerk his sais repeatedly to clear them of viscous alien parts. He was getting into a good rhythm, just barely aware of Donatello whipping the staff skillfully about on his left and Michelangelo hollering cowabungas somewhere on the right, whizzing about on his powered skateboard. The fighting narrowed down to his own breathing, his field of vision. So as Raphael cut clean through the last creature in front of him and stood there panting, it took several seconds before he registered the clang of steel on steel.

“Whu- Leo!” Michelangelo was shouting in alarm, one nunchuck flung away from his hand with the deft twist of a sword. Leonardo was advancing unseeingly on him, blades raised, and Raphael could see the horror on his little brother’s face, feel Donatello’s shock ripple through his slender frame. With a curse, Raphael dropped his sais, charging at Leonardo and thundering at Donatello at the same time, “Grab Mikey and run!”

He slammed into Leonardo at full speed, shell-first; the swords clattered to the ground, and as he fell sideways, he snatched at Leonardo with bruising strength, wrapping legs and arms around him. He glimpsed his brothers, frozen at the corner of his eye. “Go! Get back to the lair, I’ll explain later!”

“We- we need to incapacitate him somehow- ” Donatello was stuttering, bewildered, and Michelangelo’s eyes were wider than dinner plates. “We can- ”

Oh for shells’ sake. “Go!” Raphael roared, as Leonardo headbutted him so hard that his vision went white. “It’s- worse- when- we’re all- here!” He wouldn’t be able to protect Donatello and Michelangelo, not while he was trying his damndest to protect Leonardo from himself.

They stared at him for a moment longer, before visibly steeling themselves to trust what he was saying and fled. Even then, they looked shaken, confused and terrified. But Raphael was second-in-command, and had way better chances of taking Leonardo down, especially with his size. At least, that was how it’d always been.

Leonardo hissed at him, scrabbling wildly at Raphael’s plastron, and then he bit down _hard_ on Raphael’s neck, not two inches away from the bite he’d inflicted before. The sharp flare of agony made him release Leonardo with a gasp, rolling around and narrowly stepping back in time as his brother lunged at him, teeth bared. “Leo!”

He parried the lightning flurry of punches, his mind spinning frantically. As Leonardo dropped to sweep his legs out from under him, Raphael darted forward, grabbing Leonardo’s wrists and flinging himself bodily onto his brother, crashing their heads and knees together in a painful tangle of limbs as they landed on the ground.

Leonardo wrenched his left arm free, and Raphael noticed belatedly that one of the swords was within range. Leonardo was already reaching backwards for it in a berserker’s rage, fingers closing around the blade instead of the hilt, and any second now he would bring the killing edge down between Raphael’s eyes-

He threw himself off Leonardo barely in time, the sword slicing across his cheek instead, a shallow gouge that stung nevertheless. This couldn’t go on, he was slowly but surely being turned into turtle sushi, and Raphael had to- had to- 

The insane notion finally filtered through. He had to stop fighting back. It’d worked last time, right?

Leonardo leapt on him with a snarl, both hands now cut and bleeding freely, grasping the sword and raising it above his head-

Raphael forced himself limp, praying hard that he wouldn’t be skewered in the next moment.

The blade stopped, just as the sharp tip sank into the soft skin at the top of his plastron.

Oh, it hurt, it was such a small cut, but it _hurt_ , and Raphael’s heart was thrumming wildly, frantically, in his ribcage. He exhaled, as softly and steadily as he could, fighting a wince as every breath pushed the sword a millimeter deeper, projecting as much calm as he could muster. “Leo? It’s Raph.”

Leonardo still wasn’t looking at him, but after a few of the longest seconds Raphael had ever experienced, the fingers loosened, just a fraction, on the blade. 

“Leo,” he tried for soothing, increasingly difficult when a sword was embedding itself excruciatingly slowly into his body. “Leo, you’re okay. I’m okay.”

Leonardo’s breathing was getting ragged. He flexed his fingers around the blade, slippery with his own blood.

“It’s me,” Raphael whispered. “It’s me, Leo.”

Leonardo jerked back, releasing the sword and falling to the side. Comprehension returned, and all the color drained from his face. 

Raphael carefully, carefully removed the blade, and then, because he wasn’t sure if making a loud sound at this time would send Leonardo straight back to hell, lay it as quietly as he could down beside him. There was a strange feeling in his chest, a flutter like butterflies, and he was suddenly aware of the slight roll of the ship beneath him, the barely audible sound of waves lapping. He was fine, they both were, but all the strength seemed to have left his body now that the danger had passed, replaced by an odd exhilaration that Leonardo was back, was _okay_.

“Raph,” Leonardo’s voice was low, tortured. “I- ”

He reached out and Leonardo recoiled, folding in on himself. “No, don’t, Raph, I might- ”

Raphael pulled his brother down firmly, and kissed him. 

He felt Leonardo twitch feebly, could read the regret and agony in his brother’s darkened eyes, and Raphael poured all of the things he didn’t know how to say into the kiss. His relief, singing like a warm flood in his veins; how important Leonardo was to him, how much he lov-

Then Raphael’s mind went blank, because Leonardo started kissing him back, tongue curling tentatively around his own, and _oh_ , he’d never felt so _alive_ , so connected to the familiar body on top of him, and it was marvelous and surprising and just _perfect_.

By the time they broke apart for air, Raphael was dizzy and dangerously close to dropping down. Every nerve felt aflame. Leonardo’s color had come back; he was flushing, warm under Raphael’s hands, shifting uncomfortably in his kneeling position as his tail bulged. Before he could think twice about what he was doing, Raphael caught Leonardo by the wrist, pulling him over and astride him, tugging him back down so he could kiss him again and then Leonardo _did_ drop down, hanging hard and hot between Raphael’s legs, with a soft moan against Raphael’s lips.

Raphael’s cock was already dripping, his entire body aflame with arousal. He clung to Leonardo’s arms, rutting desperately against him, unable to stop a whimper when Leonardo pushed himself across the top of Raphael’s thighs, creating exquisite friction that made his whole body tremble. The heat and strength of Leonardo’s body - the smell of him - was intoxicating and Raphael was drunk on it, hurtling close to the edge. He felt Leonardo shuddering against him, thrusts becoming erratic. The wave of pleasure built feverishly in Raphael’s body, and then his toes were curling and his head was falling back with a thump, and he groaned and spilled hotly across his plastron. 

Leonardo was looking at him, a dark hunger lurking in the depths of his burning gaze. He reached down, dragging a hand through the white streaks of Raphael’s release and then, with their eyes still locked, raised his hand and _licked_ it from his fingers, thumbing the head of his cock with his other hand. When he came with a guttural gasp, it was liquid heat, slicking Raphael’s own cock and spilling between Raphael’s legs, and it was the most erotic thing Raphael had ever seen.

It took a while after that for Raphael to get his breathing under control. As he came down from the adrenaline high, every single wound and scrape that he’d picked up - and a dozen more that he hadn’t noticed at the time - started to make their existence felt. His cheek was throbbing, his neck hurt to move, and shells, there was blood everywhere, from where he’d been stabbed, from Leonardo’s cut palms-

He stopped short at the expression on Leonardo’s face. His brother had been looking him over at the same time and Raphael could practically see the guilt and dismay begin to creep in with the growing pinch between Leonardo’s eye ridges and the hardening clench of his jaw. Right. It probably looked like a murder scene.

“I’m okay,” he blurted, and Leonardo’s eyes drifted to his, surprised, exasperated and disbelieving all at once. Well, Raphael wasn’t going to be a wuss about it, although hiding the wince when he sat up took more concentration than he would have liked. His entire body was sore from the fight, and his legs felt like cotton wool. 

“Raph,” Leonardo’s voice was reproving, almost inaudible. “You’re not okay, you can’t keep saying that. I almost- I almost kille- ”

“You should probably call Donny and Mikey,” Raphael cut in pointedly, because talking about his _feelings_ was just about the last thing he wanted to do right now - not that he could even put a name to the turbulent swirl of emotions in his chest. He felt warm, almost embarrassed, because he’d been the one who’d pulled Leonardo down in his brother’s moment of weakness and now he had no idea what to do. “They’ll wanna know we’re fine. It’s okay- ” he forestalled Leonardo’s dawning horror and automatic scan of the room, “They got out of here when you, ah, flipped. I said I’d handle it.”

Leonardo just looked at him, and Raphael sighed. “No, you didn’t...hurt them. Mikey might be a bit freaked out, though. You kinda disarmed him. With a sword. If ya don’t remember.”

They picked themselves up in silence after that, and then Leonardo got out his communicator quietly and dialed.


	3. Chapter 3

As they stood behind Donatello listening to their brother ramble on about triangulation points, portals and rapidly self-evolving aliens, Raphael was acutely aware of the single inch between his arm and Leonardo’s, a thin space of air that seemed to be radiating heat. 

Since the incident, they’d only been alone once. When they’d returned to the lair that day, it had been almost dawn. Leonardo’s call had reassured Donatello and Michelangelo sufficiently enough that the younger turtles had been sleeping by the time they got back, exhausted from the fight and the worrying. Raphael had been privately thankful, because even though they’d cleaned up marginally, he was sure he still looked like death warmed over and was in no mood to field concern or questions.

He’d had a cold shower, grimacing at all his injuries, and grabbed the darkest towel on the rack so he wouldn’t stain it too obviously with blood. When he got back to his room, Leonardo had been waiting silently, a first-aid kit open on his bed. 

They had not spoken at all, and Raphael hadn’t known whether to be grateful or uneasy for the respite. Leonardo’s fingers had been gentle as they cleaned his wounds with disinfectant, wrapped bandages on the most serious cuts, and lingered above the shallower ones that would heal before too long. He hadn’t looked once directly at Raphael, and had left when he’d finished.

Then the next day, Leonardo had spent hours sitting quietly with Donatello in the lab, while the evening had been occupied with Michelangelo playing video games. Raphael did his best not to eavesdrop, but he still heard Donatello saying, “-stress disorder?” followed quickly by “-therapy?” and Leonardo’s noncommittal hum in reply. Then, by the evening time after Leonardo had lost three straight games, Michelangelo was back to normal, laughing openly as Leonardo watched him with a fond smile. 

But he hadn’t spoken to Raphael, not once, and Raphael was almost glad for it, because he didn’t even know where he would start. He’d had some very restless dreams filled with Leonardo’s dark eyes and bloody hands, interspersed with images of Leonardo pressed against him, shuddering, the weight of his hard body above Raphael a tactile and sensual memory. Leonardo had not been _unwilling_ , Raphael knew that much, but he was at a loss as to how much of it had been the moment of vulnerability, or Leonardo’s own desire, and how much of it had been due to Raphael’s initiative or near-death experience.

So it wasn’t like he had been avoiding Leonardo, not really, but Raphael was not going to go out of his way to bring up any of what he’d been thinking either. He’d even managed to keep a wide berth in a hopefully-somewhat natural way, training alone in his room more and popping off to hang out with Casey for a night or two.

Then Donatello had rounded them up to share the latest results of the investigation, and this was the closest Raphael had been to Leonardo since the night on the cargo ship and Leonardo fixing him up afterwards. It was an effort to keep his breathing steady and his eyes averted, for no reason that Raphael wanted to think of.

“-with these calculations, cross-referencing the dates and locations of the other reported accidents and the times that we encountered the aliens ourselves, it’s a safe bet that one of these two places will be where the next portal opens tonight!” Donatello was gesturing triumphantly to two points on a map that he had pulled up on the large screen, the numbers 92.1% and 80.3% blinking red beside them, and Raphael yanked himself back to the present because he had to concentrate on the next fight-

“So we’ll have to split up,” Leonardo concluded evenly, and Raphael’s brain froze again immediately. Donatello also paused, shooting them a hesitant look before not-quite unobtrusively beckoning Leonardo over with a meaningful glance. Raphael turned away, fielding Michelangelo’s excited crowing and premature exclamations of victory over the ‘goo-liens’. He could hear Donatello whispering and see the rigid set of Leonardo’s shoulders out of the corner of his eye.

“Alright,” Leonardo’s voice, raised slightly and all-business, pulled him back. “Donny, Mikey, you guys head on over to South Brooklyn on 2nd. Raph and I will take the Red Hook terminal on Hamilton. It’s less than three miles between the two locations. We stay on our communicators, and whenever the aliens show up, wherever they show up, we contact each other first. Half an hour check-ins and absolutely no preemptive striking, Mikey. Got that?”

Michelangelo agreed enthusiastically. Donatello still didn’t look very happy, but he nodded. 

They went over all their gear just before leaving the lair, making sure that everything was in order and that weapons were at the ready. When they came to the split in the sewers, Michelangelo waved without even turning while Donatello gave Leonardo one last, searching look, before they bounded off into the darkness. 

An awkward silence settled, and Raphael shifted uncomfortably. Leonardo was looking in the direction where their younger brothers had gone, the echo of their footsteps already fading. Then he suddenly reached out and put a hand softly on Raphael’s arm; Raphael tried his best not to jerk in surprise.

“Raph, I need you to do something for me.”

He stared at Leonardo, eyes narrowed, and a familiar spark jumped into his mind. “This isn’t gonna be any of that self-sacrificial bullshit that you always try ta pull, is it?”

Leonardo chuckled shortly, and then his fingers tightened. “No, Raph. I need- I need you to promise that you’ll keep yourself safe.”

Raphael blinked. “Uh. Okay?”

The grip on his arm became almost painful. “I’m serious, Raph.”

“...Okay,” he finally grumped out. He had no idea what Leonardo was on about. They were _ninjas_ , and about to confront some nasty alien lifeforms; scrapes were going to be inevitable, and it wasn’t as if they hadn’t survived some pretty incredible stuff before. Shell, he’d even survived Leonardo. 

More to the point, was the Fearless Leader going to be fine? He’d...snapped twice already, and Raphael didn’t have the slightest clue why, or if Leonardo had tried whatever therapy Donatello had suggested between then and now. No, Raphael would have to keep an eye on him, and he suddenly understood why they were paired up, beyond the fact that Leonardo had chosen the higher-stakes location. Leonardo must’ve thought that Donatello and Michelangelo would have been unable to fight him, if he lost it again-

Raphael cut the thought off brusquely. He’d deal with it if it came to that.

They made their way forward swiftly, hopping across low ledges and sliding over large pipes, and it wasn’t any time at all before they arrived. Leonardo replaced the sewer grate noiselessly, and then they stood, surveying the vast rows of containers piled high around them. It was going to be an uphill task to cover all that area from the ground. Leonardo signaled, _We need to get higher_ , and Raphael followed him reluctantly as Leonardo headed for the tallest stack. 

When they had finally clambered up onto the last container, Raphael flopped down to catch his breath, because a 300-pound turtle was not made for scaling heights by any stretch of the imagination. The wind whipped across the water, cooling him down, and Raphael exhaled, unexpectedly enjoying the moment. Overhead, despite the bright lights of the city, he could make out a few twinkling stars. He turned to ask Leonardo, who was crouched and peering over the far edge, if he thought the aliens might have come from one of those distant suns, and his voice died in his throat.

In the moonlight, Leonardo’s skin gleamed over smooth muscle. He moved with easy, deadly grace, an almost-predatory restraint; so different from Raphael himself. Raphael had never thought to watch Leonardo, to really _look_ at him. He was the most perfectly built among them, broad but lean where Raphael was bulky and thick. As Leonardo turned to look at him, he almost seemed to glow- 

Then Raphael realized with horror that Leonardo wasn’t glowing, and that those were _silver tendrils_ rising in the air behind his brother. Leonardo had already seized the hilt of a sword at the expression on his face but it was too late, and the creature gathered itself into one shining battering ram and smashed into Leonardo’s carapace, sending him flying forward. He’d fall right past Raphael, straight down more than 50 feet with nothing to break his impact- Raphael swung out his hand without thinking, and caught Leonardo’s fingers just as he slid over the edge of the container, almost pulling Raphael with him with the force that he’d been thrown. 

Scrabbling for purchase on the smooth metal was all but impossible; Raphael grunted as he dug his knees down hard and braced himself with his other hand. “Hold on, Leo!”

Leonardo looked back up at him, eyes widening in panic. “No, Raph, behind yo-”

He looked down, perplexed, at the hardened spike extending through his chest at an odd diagonal, and then Donatello’s voice saying _rapidly self-evolving aliens_ drowned out in the torrent of pain that roared in his ears. 

He gasped for breath, because the spike was retreating, pulling back out of his body through the narrow hole it had punched in his shell and leaving a trail of fire in its wake. Blood spilled out of the gaping wound, down his plastron, over his thighs. He tightened his grip on Leonardo, willing the bile in his throat down, and yanked his brother up and unceremoniously back onto the container. The world was starting to swim, they had to call for back-up, but Raphael’s fingers were wet and sticky, and he couldn’t seem to reach the communicator on his belt. He heard screaming, an endless unearthly shrieking that split the air and hurt to hear.

And then he realized it was _Leonardo_ , except it wasn’t. 

His brother _ripped_ through the creature, panting harshly, swords glittering and swinging so fast they blurred together. Leonardo’s eyes had gone glassy and hard, and his stance was all wrong, loose and swaying. As more ghostly gray tendrils rose to replace the one that had been cut down and Leonardo turned to face them, Raphael finally managed to tug the communicator free. He was having trouble breathing, and hitting the right buttons on the screen was proving hugely difficult with his vision rapidly blurring.

“Raph?”

Donatello. “Dnnn-” he tried, but it came out as a gurgle. _Help, help Leo-_

“We’ll be right there, Raph!” and Donatello sounded furious, distressed, alarmed, but they were _coming_ , and Raphael let go of the communicator and fell onto his side, only vaguely hearing as his younger brother continued talking at him, wisps of “-ang in there,” and “Damnit, Raph!” and Donatello _never_ swore, so it was something that Raphael would definitely be making fun of him for later.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to everyone who has been reading and commenting! It's helped me focus on this fic when I've been caught up in other things and lost some momentum.

A hand was urgently patting his cheek, and Raphael shivered and fought his way out of the murky darkness. His eyelids seemed to weigh more than concrete, and his chest felt as though it was splitting open with every shuddering breath that he sucked in.

“Raph, help me out here,” it was Donatello, imploring and speaking almost too fast for Raphael to understand. “Can you get up?”

Of course Raphael could get up, except his whole body appeared to be betraying him, and he could only twitch his fingers and groan.

“I’ve stopped the bleeding and put a temporary patch on your shell, but you have a punctured lung, and we’ll definitely have to transfuse you when we’re back at the lair, you’ve lost a lot of blood. Mikey went to get the Shell Raiser because we couldn’t carry you both, and we need to get out of here, we don’t know if there are more of them, but the portal should be clo- ”

“D’ny,” it hurt to speak, and Raphael’s mouth couldn’t seem to form words properly. “S-sl’down…” A rambling Donatello was an upset Donatello, and at the speed he was going, this was a _very_ upset Donatello.

Then the last memory he had before blacking out blared back into full force, and he clutched at his brother. “L-Le…”

“I tranquilized him,” Donatello said bluntly. “Made a back-up plan, after Leo talked to me. Not that I’d run it by him yet, considering he was awfully vague on the details of his ‘breakdown’. It’s a dose enough for a couple of elephants, since our mutagen metabolizes these chemicals really quickly. He’d already taken out most of those things by the time we got here, but he didn’t know us and we couldn’t get near him at first so we missed a couple of shots but then I got a lucky one in, which is really lucky, because Mikey was a couple of inches away from becoming confetti. Is that what you were up against last time, by yourself? Anyway, he should be out for at least a few more hours. Well, there he is.” He nodded to Raphael’s left, and it took every ounce of strength he had to turn his head and follow Donatello’s gaze.

Leonardo’s face looked peaceful, mouth lax, and that annoying perpetual pinch between his eye ridges was gone. Raphael could almost believe that he was just sleeping, except that Leonardo was covered pretty much head to toe in alien guts and purple-gray ooze, with angry red scrapes on every visible inch of skin. He was still grasping his swords; they, too, were soaked to the hilt, and Raphael didn’t know why, but he started to shake and he couldn’t seem to stop.

Donatello’s hand was still on his cheek, a comforting warmth, and his brother at last fell quiet as Raphael closed his eyes and willed the gasps of relief away.

***

Donatello was exhausted, hunched over in his chair, but he couldn’t bring himself to get up and turn in. 

It had been a full day since the disastrous stake-out. Raphael was completely out for the count, and would be for a while; Donatello still felt queasy at the memory of having to speed-search through a dizzying number of medical journals, trying to foist together a treatment plan that would conceivably work while trying not to let his eyes drift to the flinchingly gory hole in his brother’s shell and plastron. If the puncture had been any larger… Donatello shoved that thought aside before it could go further. 

The most important thing was that Raphael’s breathing had finally eased in the last few hours, and the wound didn’t seem infected. Not for the first time, Donatello thanked all the gods for their mutated resilience, because while he dearly enjoyed being the technical expert on the team, he had also fallen into the role of medical officer by default, which he did not enjoy nearly half as much, having to always desperately cobble together knowledge on human biology together with a very generous dose of creative thinking for their own bodies.

No, Raphael would heal, surely if slowly. Their eldest brother, on the other hand…

Leonardo had regained consciousness about 10 hours ago. But he’d been completely catatonic, eyes blank, limbs lax. He hadn’t responded to Michelangelo’s hesitant queries, nor Splinter’s gentle touch. Donatello had felt an uncomfortable blow of guilt, and then rushed off to recheck the components of the tranquilizer he’d created, although he had checked it about five times before he’d packed it into the syringe guns. Then he’d also analyzed Leonardo’s blood, and if the knowledge that the tranquilizer was not causing the issue was a huge consolation, it still didn’t make up for the fact that Leonardo might as well have been turned into a statue.

It had happened before, but Leonardo had returned to them. How had Raphael made Leonardo come back the last time? Donatello remembered a fist print on Raphael’s cheek, the suspiciously-placed stab wound that Raphael had tried to hide, and couldn’t for the life of him see how a solution had been worked out. Fighting Leonardo in that state had been all but impossible; it’d taken both himself and Michelangelo working together armed with a powerful sedative to incapacitate their battle-maddened brother. Leonardo had fought as if - Donatello shuddered slightly to remember it - as if he didn’t care what happened to him. The twists, strikes, the single-minded intensity...Leonardo would have fought anything that moved until his body gave out.

He rose then, suddenly filled with a compulsive urge to look in on his eldest brother one more time, to make sure Leonardo was - if not _well_ , or _back_ \- at least breathing. If he didn’t improve for much longer, they would have to look into getting an IV line in.

Slipping into the dimly-lit room, he carefully pulled a chair up to the bed. His brother’s blue eyes were open, but vacant. Donatello didn’t know what else to do, so he did what he always did when he was lost: he talked.

“I’m sorry, Leo. Well, I dunno if you remember it even, but ah, I shot you. With a tranq. You were- well, I don’t wanna say out of control, but...yea. Anyway, that was yesterday.” He looked up at the clock, ticking silently on the side table. 

“It’s my fault, if I had just been able...to make those calculations better, then maybe we wouldn’t have had to split up. We could all have been together...not that it looks like you needed us at all, hah. It’s craz- I mean, it’s unbelievable, how those aliens are evolving, you know? I got more pieces of them back to the lab to analyze, when we went to, uh, pick you guys up. With the first sample from before, they were just kinda, well, gooey, but the neural threads that connect one piece with another, like a hive mind, that was already there, and now, with the latest samples, it seems that they can change their density as well, isn’t that amazing? So they could be flowing, like water, or harder than steel. It’s almost- almost like a biological playdough, but through states of matter, and- I wish you’d wake up, so you could tell me more about what they were like, but maybe Raph will- ” Leonardo blinked, and Donatello almost forgot the end of what he’d been about to say. “...will wake up...first…?”

Leonardo blinked again. His breathing was increasing rapidly, and Donatello almost toppled the chair, he stood up so fast. “Leo? Leo!”

His brother flinched, a ripple through his whole body, and those fixed, unseeing eyes turned in his direction. Leonardo’s lips moved, but no sound came out. Donatello dropped to his knees in hope, in panic, and strained to listen.

“...dead.”

Wha- ?

“No, no, you’re not dead, you’re not dead,” Leonardo was _awake_ , Leonardo was _talking_ to him..! “You’re not dead, nobody’s dead, we’re all here!” 

Leonardo’s eyes focused, finally, with a visible effort. “...Do-Donny?” his voice was a whisper, his throat cracking dry and unused, and it was all Donatello could do not to sag to the ground, all the fatigue of the last 24 hours suddenly piercing through his whole body in bright relief. “...not...dead..?”

“No, no, no, you’re not dead. I’m not dead.” What was Leonardo saying? Did he think he had died, that they had all died, that this was the afterlife? Donatello was turning into a broken record, but he had no idea what Leonardo was asking and he had to keep him talking, keep him conscious-

“...not...de-dead...ffhh…”

“You’re not dead!” Donatello cried, because now he was about to wring his hands in helplessness. “You’re- ” and then something about what Leonardo was saying suddenly slid into place, and he _understood_ , and Donatello reached out and held onto Leonardo’s cold fingers.

“Raph? Raph’s not dead, Leo. He’s- ” he hesitated, because fine was hardly what he could call Raphael right now, but he was definitely- “He will _be_ fine. He’s just sleeping off the drugs, and the surgery, but- he’ll be okay. He’s right next door.”

Leonardo blinked again, slowly.

Then his other hand crept up weakly onto Donatello’s and gave a shaky squeeze, before he sighed in a small tremble and closed his eyes.

***

The Creature was perplexed, and feeling more than a little thwarted.

With the technology that it had copied through careful observation, it had tried several times now to enter a new world. The Kraang had not managed to stay in this new world, which meant that there would be no Kraang, nor Triceratons, no other vastly stronger alien races that would trod on the Creature and its many bodies and parts if it made it there. It had succeeded in opening several small portals, but each time, there had been disturbances fighting its bodies back, not letting it spread unhindered.

The Creature couldn’t think very far ahead, but it liked to learn through tactility. It did this by integrating other bio-masses within itself; doing so could sometimes add to its abilities, and other times, the little things just writhed and melted so deliciously in the Creature’s body that catching and keeping more and more of them provided both amusement and sustenance at the same time. If the beings fought back, the absorption of their matter would simply proceed at a faster speed. It seemed like there were many different bio-masses in the new world. The Creature had already managed to subsume a soft, jellied body that had staggered around on two legs, smelled of something mildly intoxicating and who’d protested weakly, as well as something else that lived in the water and flapped vigorously when caught.

This last time, however, one of the Creature’s bodies had gotten a taste of whatever it was that kept insisting on getting in its way on the other side of the portal. It had been a very strange thing, with its surface harder than either the jellied body or the flapping thing, and possessing a particularly tough outer cover on one side. But the Creature was nothing if not inventive, and parts of its separate bodies had managed to transform themselves adequately to spear through the hindrance. There had been something potent in that bio-mass, a heady cocktail of power and rejuvenation that the Creature thought was so very delectable indeed, so much lovelier than either of the things it had consumed in the new world. But then another one of the hindrances had gotten in the way, and most of the bodies that the Creature had sent through the portal had perished.

Perhaps it was time to send itself over completely. Then the tasty morsels would no doubt reappear, but this time, with its main body present, the Creature would not be so easily defeated. Then it would be able to make its home in the new world, and discover all the other appetizing bio-masses that were on offer there.


	5. Chapter 5

Meditation had never been so difficult. 

It’d been two days since Leonardo had woken up, two days since the fuzzy conversation with Donatello that had dragged him out of the pounding darkness of a silent room. It’d been agony, being awake but unable to move; the sensation of being pinned down as if by a giant stone, his body and mind sluggish and unresponsive. All he had been able to feel was a low thrum of hysteria, a deep, deep grief that flowed slowly through his veins, along with the indistinct image of a beloved face.

_Gone, he’s gone, he’s dead, I wasn’t strong enough-_

He’d been dragged out of it. Pulled closer and nearer to the surface with the sound of Donatello’s voice, finally breaking through to full awareness with a ringing realization: No one had died, and Leonardo had a problem. A big one.

He had blanked out again and pushed his body past its limits. Muscles had been torn, leaving pain shooting up and down his legs, and his right shoulder had been reset. He’d wrenched his wrists, and even his throat felt raw - as though he’d been screaming and unable to stop. 

Leonardo had dismissed the first episode as simple battle madness, unwilling to look too closely at it or to admit his own failure in reining himself in. It had happened once, but Raphael had been there, had kept him from hurting himself and anyone else, and surely it wouldn’t happen again.

Except that one failure had become two. And now two had become three. 

There was no way to avoid confronting the issue anymore.

His first instinct had been to turn to meditation, looking inward to see if he could find the root cause of his mental lapses. But it was hard to examine his thoughts when he was so deeply troubled, when his guilt at having let Raphael down was almost suffocating, and when Raphael’s face - along with frequent and scattered flashes of the memory of kissing Raphael, their tongues tangling together and then the _taste_ of him, the sounds of Raphael moaning and gasping in dazed pleasure - kept interrupting his increasingly-desperate attempts to still himself.

He thought about the times he’d lost control, and wondered if the aliens had a destabilizing effect on the psyche. After all, he’d managed several night patrols in between their attacks and had been perfectly fine when he’d had to fight the Purple Dragons. But then why wouldn’t any of his other brothers have been affected? There had to be another common thread, something that he wasn’t letting himself see, something that was setting him off…

“Leooo?” Michelangelo peeked into the dojo, quizzical blue eyes shining in the dim light. “Are ya- can I- ”

He couldn’t help a small sigh, but collected his frustrated thoughts carefully before beckoning his youngest brother over, pasting a smile on. Michelangelo grinned in relief and bounded over, skidding to a halt and plopping himself down beside where Leonardo sat cross-legged. Leonardo looked at him, cocking an eye-ridge questioningly, but Michelangelo didn’t speak straightaway, instead hesitating for a brief second before looking up, unable to fully hide the flicker of anxiety that lurked beneath. 

Leonardo waited a beat more, then nodded encouragingly. “What’s up, Mikey?” The youngest turtle was still eyeing him a little warily, but when Leonardo stared back patiently, it was like a dam burst.

“I just- wanted ta check if you were really okay, Leo. Because ya know...the last time I saw ya, you were pointin’ your swords in this cool dude’s direction, and I know ya didn’t mean it - probably didn’t mean it, but it can’t hurt ta check, right? And- ”

Leonardo couldn’t stop the inward wince as his brother babbled on, regret and apology rising immediately. Of course. Donatello had had the tranquilizers, but wouldn’t have been able to neutralize Leonardo without Michelangelo helping him. Leonardo didn’t remember the details, or indeed, if Donatello had even told him anything about him attacking them. But Leonardo had clearly scared them, even if he hadn’t hurt them. 

An inverse of the way he’d inadvertently hurt Raphael, though he hadn’t scared _him_. 

A swell of inexplicable anger, laced with panic, suddenly made itself known. That was the problem: Raphael was never scared, even when he had every reason to be. Always, always reckless. Throwing himself into situations headfirst without thinking twice. Putting himself in harm’s way, where sooner or later, Leonardo wouldn’t be able to rescue him, wouldn’t be able to put himself between that fiery temper and certain death, and the nausea from imagining that final day crested like a wave in his gut and made his hands twitch for his swords-

He abruptly realized that Michelangelo had stopped talking and was regarding him nervously, two seconds from backing away. Leonardo’s growing agitation had probably been clear on his face.

He closed his eyes and inhaled deeply, centering himself with an effort and reaching for a semblance of calm. “I’m sorry, Mikey. I really am.” He reached for his youngest brother slowly and gently, and was grateful when warm fingers closed, trusting and forgiving, with his own. “I didn’t mean to frighten you. Or to worry you. I’m just...I’m trying to figure things out too.”

He could feel Michelangelo nodding, tentatively at first, and then vigorously. “Yea. Yea, that’s alright, Leo. And you don’t hafta figure it out all on your own if ya don’t want. Ya know you can always talk to us.”

Leonardo smiled, honestly this time. “I know. Thanks, Mikey.”

There was something discomforting about the hot flare of anger he had experienced when thinking about...about losing Raphael. A darkness that lurked just out of reach. He struggled to grab hold of it, examine it closer, even as his mind rebelled against the possibility. No more running away. He owed it to all of them.

***

When Raphael woke, it was with a complete disorientation, and his body felt so rigid that he could barely move. There were voices around him, but he couldn’t seem to understand what they were saying, and then wide baby-blue eyes suddenly filled his vision. 

“Raph’s awake! Don, look, grumpypants is finally up!”

Raphael swatted the voice away on automatic, and his baby brother laughed in delight; it was at the same time overly loud and comfortingly familiar. Donatello’s warm hand left his forehead, murmuring something about a fever, and Raphael blinked the last of the gray spots away from his vision. 

“You shouldn’t hit Mikey like that, Raph,” Donatello was peering at him, noticeably worn out but with a small smile tugging at his mouth. “He’s given you a lot of blood.”

“Mhm!” Michelangelo was back on the bed, rubbing Raphael’s head in a way that he had never been allowed to do, ever. “I had to eat soooo much pizza to get those lil’ red cells back, y’know, but Sensei said it was tooootally okay because it was for ya. So now, y’know, ya always gonna have a little bit of Mikey in ya!” 

“Great,” Raphael groaned. “Jus’ what I always wanted.” He lifted his arm and caught Michelangelo’s hand on his head with some effort, giving it a warning squeeze before pulling it gently down. His brother blinked at him, and then broke out into a wide smile, pleased. “I know that’s your way of saying ‘thanks and I love ya forever, Mikey’!”

“Thanks, and I love ya forever, Mikey,” Raphael repeated drolly, enjoying the way Michelangelo completely stopped, gawking in surprise. “Though I guess I gotta thank Donny more for this.” He was wrapped up in so many bandages that he didn’t recognize his body, and there was a sharp prick of pain in his chest. 

“Well, yea,” Donatello scrubbed at his face tiredly, then managed a grin. “You won’t believe the things I had to do, Raph. Wire, epoxy, fixing up your shell, so many needles and stitches, your favorite-” he couldn’t help but laugh at Raphael’s expression. “Bottom line: you’re gonna be okay. I checked now and everything looks like it’s healing alright. Might want to take it easy for a couple of weeks though.”

His fingers curled, and he bumped the back of Donatello’s hand softly. “...Thanks, Donny.” 

Donatello shooed Michelangelo off the bed. “Go tell Sensei that Raph’s awake, Mikey.” Then he sat down in the vacated spot, cocking his head at Raphael. “Raph...how much do you remember?”

Raphael cycled through his memory, and found it frustratingly, bafflingly blank. They had gone to...to Red Hook Terminal. He remembered climbing. Looking at stars. Looking at Leonardo, who had been...beautiful. Glowing. 

And then nothing.

Except his injuries spoke for themselves. He looked sideways at Donatello. “The aliens showed up where Leo and I were staking out, huh?” His brother was steadfastly ignoring his eyes, suddenly busy with squeezing the remainder of the roll of bandage in his hands, which made it horrifyingly easy to guess what had happened next. “Leo went all...psycho again, didn’t he?”

“You don’t remember any of that?” Donatello’s voice was soft. “Seeing it, I mean?”

Raphael would’ve shrugged but every stiff muscle in his healing body was conspiring against him and he had to bite his tongue not to groan at the attempt. “Nah. Probably somethin’ ta do with that massive blood loss you were talkin’ about?” Something in his chest throbbed, felt swollen and tender and wrong, but he didn’t quite dare to look closely. He hated seeing stitches. 

“Do you remember me talking to you afterwards?”

Raphael frowned. Afterwards? After a battle he couldn’t recall? Now that Donatello mentioned it, something seemed familiar about that, though the actual content of their conversation was noticeably missing. “Yea...no?” he hazarded.

Donatello expelled a deep gust of breath. “Then you don’t remember me telling you I tranquilized Leo into the next dimension? Ah, figuratively speaking that is.”

Raphael blinked. 

And then the image of Leonardo, completely unconscious and covered head to toe in alien guts and blood, blood, so much blood, slammed back into his memory.

He lurched up in bed before he could stop himself, and the pain was so sudden that he could only gasp, eyes watering. Donatello’s shout was a hazy wordless reverberation in his hearing, and then strong but gentle hands were pushing him firmly down again. By the time the ringing in his ears and the gray in his vision had faded, Raphael caught only the tail-end of Donatello’s exasperation.

“-not sure what’s happened between the two of you, but Leo is doing fine and you seem to be more energetic than you should be, so the sooner you get this worked out, the sooner we can go back to kicking alien butt, okay?”

That...sounded like a good idea, actually. Raphael was caught between the anxiety of having to confront everything that had transpired between Leonardo and himself and the terrible emptiness of not _knowing_. He’d managed to postpone the former feeling again and again, but how long could he keep it up? Perhaps indefinitely but...he didn’t want to. 

Because when every part of his body was in pain and crying out, all it came down to was that he wanted to see Leonardo. He wanted Leonardo close. Remembering Leonardo pale and wrecked and passed out sharpened the realization that Raphael could have lost him - could still lose him - every single time they went out and fought. _Raphael_ could have died, from all the evidence before him. All without having said what was on his mind.

He resolved that he would speak properly to Leonardo the next time he saw him, and then settled back as gingerly as he could. Splinter arrived at that moment, bustling around Raphael with so much warmth and deeply-relieved fatherly concern that it was easy to lie back and just let himself be fussed over, pushing all thoughts of Leonardo out of his head.

He couldn’t stay awake for long before the weariness dragged him back under. Raphael hadn’t even caught a glimpse of his oldest brother since he’d been awake, and it was edging him into a growing discomfort that would probably have blown over into anxiety had Donatello not already reassured him that Leonardo was recuperating far better than Raphael himself, though it would be a while before he was back to his usual training routines. 

The next day came, and again there was no trace of Leonardo. Donatello mentioned that their eldest had been meditating almost as much as he’d been resting, his injuries still restricting his range of movement. Raphael decided not to question it.

Then the second day came, and still there was no Leonardo. Not even a passing shadow by his door.

By the third day, Raphael knew it for sure: Leonardo was avoiding him. 

It was starting to piss him off. But his pride wouldn’t let him ask Donatello or Michelangelo about it, and coupled with his own jittery thoughts, it was more convenient to doze and continue avoiding the gnawing questions in his mind. If Leonardo wanted to play the evading game for whatever reason - that undoubtedly had to do with Leonardo’s overblown sense of responsibility or some other stupidity - Raphael was most definitely not going to cave and show how much he wanted to see him. It helped that he was still mostly bedridden, but as the days went by and he was able to stay awake for longer, that absence began to deepen into an almost physical ache.

Then without warning, two weeks into his recovery, the presence he’d been missing finally appeared in the doorway. 

Raphael busied himself with shaking out his pillow, because he didn’t want to look as though he’d just been pathetically _waiting_ , and that pillow needed some serious work, anyway; after having been in bed for most of all that time, it had noticeably flattened out. There was an odd light in Leonardo’s eyes, and as his eldest brother moved forward, there was an air about him, so intense and heavy that it pulled all of Raphael’s attention.

“I think…” Leonardo started slowly without preamble, “It’s you.”

Raphael froze mid-pillow thump, trying not to be distracted by how close Leonardo was now standing. “Whaddya mean? What are ya talking about?” He was unable to stop the next words from leaving his mouth, petty and raw and too revealing despite all of his previous determination to stay aloof, which had now mysteriously disappeared. “Where the hell have ya been, anyway?”

Leonardo was tracking his movement, gaze sliding from Raphael’s hand, up his arm, across his chest, and then up, up. Their eyes met, and against his will, Raphael felt his breath catch in his throat. 

When Leonardo spoke again, his voice was soft, almost a whisper. 

“I think it’s you, Raph. I think you’re making me go mad.”


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> * This chapter has explicit content *

“Wh-what did ya say?!” Raphael had to have heard wrong. It came out as more of a flustered squawk than he would ever admit.

Leonardo looked directly at him, contemplative. Then he exhaled and stepped forward and, with some hesitation, closed the door behind him. The click of the lock seemed to echo, too loud in the silence.

“When you’re hurt, Raph. Or in danger. I think...I think that’s the trigger.”

Raphael was incredulous. “Whu- _ya’re_ in danger, all the time! We all are! What’s the damn difference?”

He tried to think back to the first time Leonardo had snapped. When had it been? It hadn’t been on the ship - and a warm flush rose to his cheeks as he remembered what _had_ happened there, but he pushed it aside without daring to dwell on it for even a moment longer - so it must have been earlier-

In the warehouse, that had been the first time. Where the alien goop had almost had Raphael for dinner. Then it had been on the ship, when one of them had managed to drag him around by the ankle and stuff him inside itself. And then now…

It’d been when Raphael had been stabbed through the shell..?

A mix of disbelief, shock and realization rose like a tidal wave and crashed over him, flooding his body numbly as he stared back at Leonardo, gaping like a fish out of water. Behind all of that, stuck in his throat, was a lump that only seemed to grow and grow.

Leonardo was right. Raphael was doing this to him. Not intentionally, never intentionally, but somehow, it _was Raphael’s fault_.

His brother was studying him quietly, gaze flitting from the remaining bandages across Raphael’s body, down his arms, to his legs and then back up to his face. “We don’t all take the risks you do,” Leonardo answered mildly, to a question that Raphael could barely remember asking.

Denial hovered on the edges of his awareness and Raphael replaced it with a burst of reliable belligerence, because what in shells was that supposed to mean? “Yea, I go through the door first an’ I hit the hardest. So?”

Only Leonardo could make a sigh sound like a gentle rebuke. Raphael stared at him, challenging, but Leonardo only looked at him evenly, not rising to the bait. It was a while before he spoke again.

“Can- can you stop fighting for a bit, Raph? Just...take the time, and heal?” He was already clearly steeling himself, because he had to know what a ridiculous request he was making as Raphael gaped at him. 

“No! I’m fine!”

At some point, Leonardo had moved forward, closer to the bed, close enough to touch. His hand reached out, hovering above the thickest of the bandages on Raphael’s chest, where the wound in his body still ached and pulled. But although he was nearer, his voice had dropped, so soft that Raphael had to strain to hear it now. “Do you _want_ me to go mad, Raph?”

Raphael had to stop himself from leaping off the bed and shouting, he was so indignant. “Of course not!” he barked defensively. But asking Raphael not to _fight_ was like-

Leonardo leaned down and kissed him fiercely, and Raphael’s outrage deflated like a bubble in a storm. 

It was even better than he remembered. His fingers closed in shakily on Leonardo’s arms, and the warmth of Leonardo’s body under his hands, the sensuous curling of his tongue around Raphael’s own, all of it awoke a deep heat that flared low in his belly. He could feel Leonardo’s fingers avoiding the bandages and trailing further down his plastron instead, feel the strength of Leonardo’s thighs settling across and between his legs as he moved over him, bearing him down carefully all while kissing him breathless. 

It took a while longer to realize that Leonardo was murmuring against his lips, asking if anything hurt, if they could go on, and Raphael grabbed Leonardo by the back of the neck and stopped the questions as definitively as he could by inserting his tongue back into Leonardo’s mouth. As an afterthought, he licked along Leonardo’s lower lip, nipping it deliberately, and Leonardo’s answering groan sent a twinge right to Raphael’s hardening cock, already half-out of his tail.

Leonardo’s callused thumb brushed over his slit, nudged him out completely, and then that deft, clever hand was wrapping warm and tight around him and Raphael couldn’t stop himself. He moaned into the kiss and tried to buck into the snug channel of Leonardo’s fingers, but Leonardo was pinning him gently with his own weight, whispering against his cheek that Raphael shouldn’t move too much still, that he would open his wounds, and all the while Leonardo stroked him from base to tip again and again, maddeningly sweeping up the pre-fluid that had started leaking out and rubbing it all over the head of Raphael’s cock. He could feel Leonardo, unbearably hard, his cock pressing a hot line against Raphael’s thigh and dribbling fluid of its own across his skin.

It was dizzying and so good, and he whimpered desperately into Leonardo’s mouth just as Leonardo’s hand left his cock and painted a trail down, slippery with Raphael’s own slick. The tip of a large finger traced his puckered entrance slowly and deliberately, and Raphael trembled at the new sensation, not even knowing what he wanted until it pressed _inside_. It was a hot blunt pressure that ached as much as it filled him with a blazing _want_. 

There was a throbbing heat in his core as he clamped down on that finger, an exquisitely full feeling of penetration as that finger pushed deeper in, in, past the resistance, nudging back and forth in short staccato thrusts until Raphael shattered, gasping, his vision whiting out completely. 

He thought he heard, distantly, Leonardo growling against his neck, and he felt Leonardo’s hand leaving him to wrap around his own cock and pull with frantic abandon. Once, twice, thrice, and then hot liquid release was streaking across Raphael’s thighs and over his lower plastron, and Leonardo was biting off low moans as his hips twitched jerkily against Raphael. 

It took several long minutes for the world around them to swim blearily back into focus, and for all Raphael’s senses to start functioning again.

“This,” Leonardo mumbled against his shoulder, “-is the other ‘damn difference’, Raph. This is what you do to me.”

Oh. 

Raphael wanted to feel angry again. It wasn’t fair that Leonardo was holding him responsible for this- this heated and delicate nameless thing between them. What Leonardo was saying...the very idea that Raphael held the keys to his brother’s madness was suffocating and ugly. He wanted to scream, to rail at Leonardo, to demand that he be strong enough to fix himself on his own without making requests of Raphael to do something as absurd as _not fight_.

But none of those words would come, and all he could do was curl his fingers against Leonardo’s chest and feel the steadying thump of Leonardo’s heartbeat beneath, falling in sync with his own as if they had become one.

***

A week passed, and then another. And another.

It felt as if everything had returned to a semblance of normalcy besides the fact that Raphael was still not in fighting shape. Donatello dutifully checked the wound every few days, and he was pleased to see that the gaping hole had finally closed up, with the new flesh slowly knitting together over Raphael’s plastron and a thin layer of new scute forming over the gap in his shell. Both would harden with time and hopefully return to the same durability. 

Raphael had also complained enough to finally be allowed to leave his bedroom. That first day, his muscles had been so stiff and his body so unused to being upright that he had wobbled dangerously on his feet, prompting Donatello to shout in alarm. It had taken both Leonardo and Michelangelo supporting their largest sibling for Raphael to make it to the couch. Raphael had been so embarrassed that he’d ignored all of them for the rest of the day, especially when they’d all continued to eye him to make sure he wouldn’t try to move elsewhere without help.

After that, Raphael had been more determined than ever to recover, though Donatello had threatened his pugnacious brother with a sedative if he even dared to try and train. Forbidden from entering the dojo, he’d started trudging around the lair, painfully stretching out his limbs every day in a show of tight-lipped patience that Donatello was frankly amazed to see. He caught Leonardo watching Raphael as well on these jaunts, unsmiling, blue eyes narrowed.

The strange tension between his two older brothers appeared, paradoxically, to have both settled and increased at the same time. They no longer snapped at each other, Leonardo perhaps making allowances for Raphael’s condition - but Donatello had no idea what was going on in Raphael’s head. Leonardo’s psychotic episodes were weighing at the back of all their minds; perhaps Raphael still felt guilty or frustrated that he hadn’t managed to stop Leonardo again? Yet, he wasn’t taunting him or mocking him, or doing any of the other confrontational things Raphael generally liked to do when it came to Leonardo.

Every few days, Leonardo would disappear into Raphael’s room and close the door. The one time he and Michelangelo had tried to eavesdrop, they had heard only silence, as though Leonardo and Raphael were simply sitting across from each other, not speaking. It was a new equilibrium, something that danced on the very edge of being awkward but somehow managing to avoid it for all that none of their other interactions changed. 

Donatello wondered what had happened between them.

He was distracted by a beep on his console, and whirled to see what it was. His eyes widened. 

It was the program he had written to try and predict where the alien portals would emerge and when. Things had been so quiet after the last attack that he’d almost let himself hope that that had been the end of it. The duration in between then and now was almost too long for any sensible pattern to be followed anyway, but he’d left the program connected to the isotopic sensors he had scattered around the city as a precaution. Some of them were reacting now even as he watched, the readings creeping inexorably upwards and upwards, higher than they had ever registered before. Surely it had to be a mistake. And the location of the sensors that were pinging back was at...

Dread twisted in Donatello’s stomach. He bent himself over the console, fingers flying on the keys, trying to confirm and verify. It couldn’t be- 

But the results came back the same, and Donatello stared at the screen for a split second longer before he shot up out of his chair. He darted out of his workshop, and then ran so hard into Leonardo that the collision knocked him off balance. 

“Donny? What’s the matter?”

He scrabbled for Leonardo’s outstretched hand, pulling himself firmly upright. “Leo! Look, you have to come see this- ”

He dragged his brother back in front of the screen before plopping himself down in his chair, quickly opening up the previous files for comparison again and setting them side by side, and he knew he was starting to babble but he couldn’t seem to stop.

“Donny, Donny, slow down.” Leonardo’s hand braced his shoulder soothingly, bringing back a semblance of calm - but just barely. “So those are the readings you took from when you tracked the aliens before, and these are the readings now? Are you saying there’s a much larger portal opening? Where? When?”

He couldn’t help his distress as he pulled up the map, the probability of 96.3% flashing on a dot in bright red. “ _Here_ , Leo,” he said urgently, sweeping out an arm to encompass the lair. “ _Here_ , _tonight_.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have been absolutely swamped with work recently and found it really hard to motivate myself to continue this, but the lovely kudos and comments that you all keep sending really helped to give me a boost! So thank you for that, and I hope you enjoyed this chapter!


	7. Chapter 7

Raphael almost got a heart attack when Leonardo burst into his room as though a fire had been lit beneath his shell. His brother’s hand landed like a vise on his arm, all but dragging him out of bed. The motorcycle magazine he’d been idly flipping through landed on the floor.

“Leo, what the hell?!” he demanded, trying to shake the painful grip off as he was hauled outside. “What’s - ow, damnit! - what’s the matter with- ”

“You have to get out of here,” Leonardo snapped, not looking at him. “ _Now_ , Raph.”

He dug his heels in automatically, resisting the urge to violently twist himself free. “Not gonna be ordered around by ya like this, Fearless. And I ain’t budging until you tell me what’s going on.”

Recuperation notwithstanding, his greater bulk still gave him an advantage. Leonardo released his arm and wheeled around to face him, eyes blazing. “The alien creatures are opening another portal. They’re going to be here. Soon.”

“...here?” Raphael parroted dumbly. “Here as in, _here_?”

“Yes.” Leonardo stepped closer, right into Raphael’s space, hands clenched in fists at his side. “You can’t be in the lair when the portal opens, Raph. You’re still hurt, you can’t fight- ”

He’d never actually agreed to what Leonardo had asked of him. And he couldn’t help the burst of resentment at being treated like dead weight. “There must be some way I can still help!”

Leonardo hissed at him. “You can’t be here, Raph. _You know why_.”

“But- ” the ground felt like sand, as if it were giving way beneath him and making him disoriented. He might have been pulled up a little too fast. Raphael shook his head to clear the dancing spots in his vision, and then concentrated on Leonardo’s face. “-are you sure?” he couldn’t resist asking, desperate and frustrated. Was Leonardo completely certain that Raphael was the one triggering the psychosis, for all the coincidences that Raphael himself had had to acknowledge? What if it wasn’t him after all? What if Leonardo went crazy anyway, and they needed his help?

Leonardo was staring at him, face suddenly blank. “Is that a chance you’re willing to take?” he asked slowly. “Are you saying you want to _test_ me?”

Raphael shook his head, incensed and - yes, burning with sudden shame at the implication of what he _had_ been asking. “Of course not!” he retorted vehemently. “But- ”

“But nothing,” Leonardo’s expression had closed off completely. “You’re still recovering, and you haven’t been keeping up with your training. The three of us and Splinter will be more than enough to handle this. Donny’s already called April, she knows to expect you.”

Raphael grit his teeth so hard that it hurt. The reflexive urge to argue with Leonardo warred with the quiet voice in his mind that said Leonardo was right. If Leonardo was sure that Raphael was the trigger for his madness, then it would be plain stupid for Raphael to jump into battle with a barely-patched hole in his shell and the lingering weakness of his body. They hadn't told anyone about Leonardo's theory; Leonardo had been reticent about his fractured battle psyche from the start and Raphael refused to touch any of the implications with a ten-foot pole, especially not with the recent...added dimension to their relationship. But it went against every fiber of his being to flee a fight, to leave his brothers and sensei behind. The mere thought of it felt unbearable, like a physical impossibility, raining blow upon blow on his battered sense of what was right and wrong in the world.

“Raph!” Donatello ran up just then, saving Raphael from his indecision on whether or not common sense could just go to hell and if Leonardo’s order should be ignored after all. “Why are you still here? Come on, you gotta leave before we can set the traps, we’re putting them up at the entrances so you definitely don’t want to be caught in those on the way out and- ”

“Traps?” Raphael interrupted, still feeling off-kilter and irritated. “How many are ya setting up, Donny, you expectin’ a whole party or something?”

Donatello’s eyes slid behind Raphael to Leonardo, and then jerked back to Raphael’s glowering face. “Uh, no, no! Just taking precautions now that we’re on home ground. If they’re gonna be here in the lair, we want to make sure they don’t get out to the streets above, that’s all.”

Right. It made sense. But there was no quieting the unease in Raphael’s body, or the thrum of sudden tension racing through his veins.

“Is there a way I can keep track of all of ya?” he blurted, reaching out to grasp Donatello by the shoulder. “If I- if I can’t be in the fight right now- ” and how the words burned to say, “-is there a way I can see that you’re all alright without, ya know, callin’ and distractin’ ya?

Donatello bit his lip and studiously avoided looking at Leonardo, who continued to loom like a coiled spring right behind Raphael. “Um. Sure, Raph. Our communicators have that tracking signal built into them, so if you just - here, pass me yours, I’ll show you- ” Except when Raphael fumbled at his waist, he realized abruptly that his communicator was not there and he wasn’t carrying anything of use - not his weapons, not a grapple, nothing. He’d been couch- and bedridden for the last few weeks and Leonardo had dragged him out with no warning whatsoever. Raphael cursed colorfully, making to head back to his room before a hand from behind stopped him short and ungently thumped a Shell Cell on his chest. 

“Take mine,” Leonardo’s voice was an impatient growl. “Show him on the way out, Donny, I’ll start on the traps. Go now!”

Donatello plucked the communicator deftly from Leonardo’s grasp with one hand and tugged on Raphael’s arm with the other. “Got it, Leo. C’mon, Raph!” They took off in the opposite direction from Leonardo - Raphael doing his best not to stumble - and Raphael had to fight off the sudden, wholly irrational urge to reach back for his Fearless Leader, to say something completely ridiculous like “Be careful,” or “Don’t worry,” and wasn’t that just peachy? 

Damn this thing between them. It was clearly making Raphael go insane in an entirely different way.

Donatello was mumbling and punching in buttons furiously on the communicator, bringing Raphael’s attention back to him. “-so you just hit this one, Raph, and then the signal pings back and bounces off the other Shell Cells, see? So these two together now are you and me, and that one...uh, it’s not moving, so it’s probably the one in your room- anyway, you’ll be able to tell when we’re on the move, and where we’re at, and- ” 

They were at the exit now, and then Donatello was all but throwing Raphael through the door. Raphael gripped Donatello’s arm, the frustration tasting bitter at the back of his throat. “Donny, if you need help- ” he cast about at his belt again instinctively, but there were no weapons tucked there, his sais sitting neatly wrapped and polished in his room.

His brother had been turning around already but he stopped at that. There was a flash of a jittery smile, though Donatello’s brown eyes were warm and understanding above it. “We’ll call, Raph. I promise. You get to April’s now, you hear? I don’t want to have to patch that shell again.”

Raphael nodded, his heart squeezing as Donatello closed the door firmly. His feet felt like stone, weighed down to the ground. He gripped Leonardo’s communicator so tightly in his fist that it gave a warning creak.

Finally, he turned and started to move.

***

The Creature was ecstatic. Not only had it finally managed to calibrate the portal to be large enough for its main body, but it had also been able to home in directly to where it would find more of the delicious morsel from last time. Through the little bit of biological material it had absorbed, it had synthesized its newly-evolved sensory receptors to bridge the directionless maelstrom of the space-time continuum, anchoring its destination in the addictive bio-mass it had tasted. 

There was a bit of a staticked rebound; the bio-mass appeared to be on the move, pulling the coordinates of the portals along with it. The Creature twisted in mild displeasure. That would make its journey more unstable, but there was no help for it now.

The first portal began yawning open...and then the second. Once the portals merged, it would be able to get through. 

It was time to feast.

***

“What sort of traps are those anyway?” Michelangelo asked, fascinated as Donatello carefully set up the short metallic poles. He had already fastened two other pairs at various spots and Leonardo had taken and mounted the other three sets; each pole was set about six feet away from its counterpart and locked into place with weighted clamps. Donatello had one last pair tucked into his belt, and he would set that up in front of his lab - with any luck, it would protect all his equipment from the aliens and the fight.

“These are electromagnetic containment field generators,” he replied distractedly. His hands gently calibrated the experimental traps with some trepidation; Donatello had not tested these out in an actual battle before, and there was something that felt both disheartening and invasive about having to use them for the first time in the lair. But it would hopefully go some way towards stopping the aliens from getting out through the sewers into the world above ground, assuming that it would take a long and hard battle to finish them all off.

His computer beeped, and he turned automatically towards it, trying to ignore Michelangelo’s nervous bouncing around the walls before it made him more anxious himself. He hadn’t shut down the probability projection after showing it to Leonardo and the program had continued running its constant calculations in the background, taking in real-time data. As he made to close the application, he suddenly noticed that the red dot marking the calculated location was...slowly moving?

That couldn’t be right. 

The predictions had never shifted before. More than one probability could be calculated, but then it either came to pass or it didn’t. Calculations didn’t just change, unless- unless- 

Unless the parameters had changed.

Donatello dropped into his chair urgently. He pulled up the readings, noting the sensors that were registering increased readings. It wasn’t moving far or fast at all, just out along the main sewer line from the lair, towards the usual exit that they took when they were heading to April’s apartment…

A sinking feeling started in the pit of his stomach. He pulled out his communicator, fumbling only slightly, and then he keyed in the same sequence of steps that he had shown Raphael earlier to reverse-track the Shell Cells. It took only a moment before Raphael’s current location flashed on the small screen, and he held it up with shaking fingers against the map on his computer.

It was exactly the same. 

***

Raphael was bitterly regretting not incorporating more physical therapy throughout his recovery, ‘doctor’ Donatello’s orders not to push himself be damned. He’d been so preoccupied with everything that had happened with Leonardo, and then he’d only been allowed to make small laps around the living room. It had hurt just to walk around at the time, but he should still have done more, should have insisted that he get back to light training or at least picked up some weights. 

It had rained earlier today, and the lingering puddles of cold water that he’d stepped into twice already were chilling to the bone. He was also really not moving as fast as he should be, though at least his protesting muscles had finally warmed up enough not to stagger at every third step. How could he have gotten so soft after just over a month? 

When his borrowed Shell Cell buzzed suddenly, it was all he could do not to jump into the air, cursing. 

Why was - he glanced at the screen as he flipped it open, equal parts disgruntled and confused - Donatello calling now? He felt himself brightening before he could tamp down on the feeling - perhaps they’d realized they’d needed him after all. He hadn’t gone that far, he could turn around and be back in twenty minutes. Maybe even fifteen.

“Donny?”

“Raph?” his brother’s voice was pitched so high that it sounded just this side of hysterical. “Do you see anything strange around you? And do you have anything that might be able to be used as a weapon?”

Raphael frowned, casting a glance around in the near-dark. Everything was quiet except for a distant dripping of water. If he strained, he thought he could hear a faint clanging, echoing along the pipes from the way he had come. “No? But I can get back real quick and join you guys, my stuff’s in my roo- ” 

He had turned around and started walking back as quickly as he could while he talked, but as he rounded the corner, he pulled up short, stiff limbs cramping in protest. “Uh, Donny?”

“Yea?”

He had never seen a portal while it was opening; all their fights had been after the aliens had already made it through. But this must have been what it looked like all of those times - a rapidly-widening vertical split suspended in the fabric of space, emanating disembodied gray splotches that curled outwards with crackling static. 

Within, the barest glimpse of a large silver tendril lurked.

It was the largest one Raphael had ever seen.

“There’s a portal here,” he breathed into the communicator, as if whispering would put off discovery. As he watched, he felt the back of his neck prickle, and whirled about only to see yet another portal stretching open, this one much faster than the one in front of him. The gray splotches stretched grotesquely towards him from either side, as if they were reaching for each other. Raphael ducked between them, barely avoiding being grazed.

Then the first gray splotches connected, and a blinding light exploded outwards.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Once again, real life and other fics got in the way of a quick update, but if you're still reading and enjoying this, thank you for the continued encouragement and patience :)


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Does anyone still read fic at the end of the year..?

The flash bang of light was enough to make Raphael fumble the Shell Cell in surprise. He swore, dropping to the ground after it, patting about frantically as painful black spots swam behind his closed eyes. His fingers found the communicator, still open, and he seized it up again. 

“Two portals,” he croaked, and then rolled to the wall, planting himself flat against it while he blinked rapidly to clear his vision. The ground seemed to heave, and he looked up just in time to see that a large, horizontal slit had appeared between the two vertical portals, and within it was-

His heart almost stopped when he caught sight of the large, dull black eye, easily the size of his entire shell. It peered out from the fathomless dark of the other side, seemingly disoriented even as a mass of silvery tendrils spilled through the portal below it and around it, and then...it caught sight of him.

Raphael froze, willing himself not to move and the thundering of his pulse to quiet. He didn’t dare to breathe. His gaze stayed locked on the staring eye. It roved over him from top to bottom, considering him slowly and silently. All the while, his lungs burned with the effort of holding his breath.

Then his communicator crackled and Donatello’s voice came through, urgently saying “We’re on our way, Raph, hold on, okay?” and had his brother ever had _worse damn timing_ in the world?

The eye narrowed and zoomed in on his hand where the communicator sat, and Raphael had a split second to think, _Shells_ , before the tendrils were coalescing faster than he had ever seen them, drawing back in spiraling murderous circles and then rushing toward him like a bullet train.

Barely in time, he dropped the communicator and pushed himself off the wall with both hands, throwing himself to the side. The hardened tendrils impacted the place his chest had been only a moment before, stabbing straight into the concrete and sending chunks and debris scattering to the ground. He rolled, ignoring the protest of his unstretched, debilitated muscles, and scanned around desperately for something - anything - he could use. There was a glint in the corner under the seething mass of alien parts and Raphael dove for it, fingers scrabbling at the rusted grip of the manhole cover. 

He wrenched it free just as a thick tendril wrapped with dizzying speed around his ankle, snaking up his leg and tightening around his thigh, dragging him back with effortless strength. He shouted, instinctively bringing the edge of his makeshift weapon down on the tugging end of the tendril, trying to chop it in half as it pulled him towards the portal from where the eye was still watching him, now gleaming and greedy. Raphael would never admit to shrieking, but as his shell scraped painfully along the ground and he scrambled wildly to sit up and hammer the manhole cover down again and again on the tendril holding him prisoner, his voice cracked as he fought to yell between gulps of air. 

Adrenaline poured through him and he focused, finally, through the frantic panic - he took a deep breath, then reached down and slammed the edge of the cover right on the thickest part of the tendril just past where it wound around his foot. It split jaggedly, and a dark gray slick oozed out, coating his toes with gooey slime. He reaped the consequences not a second later as he turned to scramble up and promptly slipped in the oily puddle where his foot had been, almost smacking himself in the forehead with the manhole cover he was still clutching with numb fingers. But he managed to stand, and brought up his shield just in time to catch the next volley of blows.

The manhole cover dented with the sheer unrelenting force of the strikes, pressing him back against the curve of the wall. His arms shook with the strain of each consecutive hit. He hadn’t gone that far - why the hell was everyone taking so long? 

On the heels of that thought, he realized, _Leo_ , and his stomach dropped, just as a huge tendril violently knocked the manhole cover out of his fingers and reared back above him.

***

“Donny,” Leonardo’s voice was preternaturally calm. It made Donatello flinch a little. “How much longer is that going to take?”

He stared down at the screen of the portable device, hooked up to one of the poles generating the electromagnetic containment field. The poles had been made to be extremely difficult to disable - what would have been the point of going to all the effort to keep something in or out, only to have everything fall apart at the slightest knock? 

No, this latest trap he had developed was without doubt a huge success; the containment field was so strong that when Leonardo had stepped into it after Donatello had blurted the news that the portals were somehow centered on Raphael, it’d flung their oldest brother back almost across the entire den. Donatello would have congratulated himself if not for the fact that they could all hear Raphael’s pained gasps, staticked and distant across the communicator as if he’d dropped it, and the dull thuds and hollow echoes of something hitting metal repeatedly. 

He forced his hands to stop shaking, willing the deactivation codes to finish loading. The status bar crept towards completion with a steady pace, though it might as well have been crawling along as speedily as a snail for how intently they were all watching it.

89%...92%...

“Donny,” Leonardo murmured. “Do you have more of the sedatives you used on me before?”

He jerked, almost dropping the device. “Uh. Yes?” 

And then he remembered Leonardo, lying cold and still in his bed the last time Donatello had shot him with them. The blank, glassy look in blue eyes and how long Leonardo had just laid there, unresponsive and catatonic. “I mean, _no_ , no, that’s not- we shouldn’t just- ” 

100%. The poles disengaged the field with an audible pop and a fizzing noise, bleeding electrical charge into the ground. A hand closed on Donatello’s shoulder.

“Get them,” was all Leonardo said, and then he was through the door, running so lightly and swiftly that his receding footsteps made no sound. Michelangelo stared after him grimly, then locked eyes with Donatello. 

“Imma keep a watch on him,” he said decisively, slinging the skateboard free from behind his back. “Get the shots, Donny. It’s just in case, right? Maybe- maybe we won’t have to use ‘em at all.”

Donatello heaved a sigh unhappily, mind racing. At his sharp nod, his little brother was gone as well. The echo of the turbo-powered skateboard bouncing off the pipes was abnormally loud after Leonardo’s silent exit. 

It was pure luck that he hadn’t set up the last trap protecting his laboratory before he’d discovered the change in the portals. The last four minutes when they’d all been huddling at the entrance of the lair felt like it had already shortened his lifespan considerably. He glanced at the screen briefly as he jogged past, then jerked to a stop. 

The isotopic readings were through the roof, and still rising. Raphael had mentioned two portals, but with this much data continuing to flood the sensors, far longer than any of the previous attacks they had dealt with…

Were the portals not _closing_? 

Shock warred with excitement. An open portal to another dimension? The scientific possibilities were endless! His fingers flew over the keypad, entering a furious slew of commands to record and extrapolate before he stood, distractedly grabbing anything that might be vaguely useful and piling them into a bag: a portable multichannel analyzer for radiation detection, spare isotopic sensors, two grappling lines (would the vacuum of space apply to interdimensional portals? Would that effect be carried over to their world?), even a laser ruler he’d scrounged up and fixed some time ago. Oh, and a small camera he could mount to his belt! He swept in an armful of assorted knick-knacks as well - never knew what would come in handy. 

There was a nagging feeling that he was forgetting something as he glanced around the lab, but before Donatello could concentrate on it, Splinter appeared at the entrance, radiating calm as always. 

“Sensei,” he breathed, turning to him. In the outstretched furry hands were two sleek, polished sais - Raphael’s weapons that he’d left in his room. 

“Go to your brothers quickly, Donatello. I will remain here and keep the lair safe.”

He took them dutifully, tucking them securely in his belt against his plastron. “Yes, Sensei.”

***

Raphael had just enough time to lurch away as the thick silver tendril crashed into the space he’d occupied. The manhole cover was still clattering on the ground where it had fallen after being tossed against the wall and - his eyes widened - right above that was a thin shaft ladder leading up to the next level. He all but lunged towards it, nearly tripping over a tendril whipping at his knees and hurling himself over it like a champion high jumper at the last second. His fingers closed in on a rung just as he landed and he pulled himself forward, all but falling sideways with the momentum. If he could just make it up, he’d buy himself some time. 

The thick tendril smashed heavily into his back, its prehensile tip impacting directly over the freshly-healed, still-tender scute on his shell. Agony lanced up his spine and a breathless gasp tore itself free of his throat as he stumbled, wrenching his wrist where he held onto the rung with a death grip. He barely managed to right himself and turn, only to have to flatten himself back against the ladder as more silver offshoots sprang at him. 

The pain still pulled at his senses, ringing in his head and making him dizzy. Raphael fought it, yanking himself up with a desperate jump. His left foot missed the bottommost rung but his right landed solidly, and he heaved himself further, fighting the wrench in his side from the uneven leap. Just another two seconds and he’d be at the top-

Tendrils wrapped around his ankles and wrists, tightening and flowing over his legs and arms with frightening speed. The gray viscosity coiled around his chest, up his neck, and then over his face, choking off breath before he could even inhale to shout. He was overtaken, drowning as he clung to the ladder with all his might, even as he was inexorably yanked away.

A sliver of light flashed in the dark and Raphael was dropped to the ground like a sack of potatoes, the writhing goo imprisoning him slackening and slipping off like oily cut ropes. He gulped noisily for air, and it burned like fire down his throat as his vision swam and he groped about to get his bearings.

A very familiar figure stood in front of him, swords crossed. The look that Leonardo tossed him over a shoulder was both stern and resigned, though the trickle of relief in it made Raphael’s gut clench. 

“Raph,” Leonardo sounded stilted and curt, as if he was reining himself in with steely focus. “Can you get up?”

The remains of the tendrils coated Raphael’s skin, making everything slippery and sticky. The freshly healed scute was throbbing where he’d been lashed and there was a definite twinge in his side, but he pushed the pain down and heaved himself to a standing position with single-minded determination. “Yes,” he gritted out, and then he was abruptly distracted by Michelangelo throwing himself into the fight with a loud whoop and a dizzying whirl of nunchucks. 

“Get to safety,” Leonardo’s voice was low. There was a tremor to it that made Raphael feel as though they were standing on a knife’s edge. “So help me, Raph, if you get hurt or caught _one more time_ \- ”

It would have been a stinging rebuke of how helpless Raphael had been if not for the wild light lurking at the corners of those blue, blue eyes. Panic burst through Raphael, as bright and sharp as a blade. He wanted to _help_. He could help. “Leo,” he got out, and then all other words seemed to fail. “I- ”

“Please.” Somehow, the whisper was louder than it had any right to be. “Please, Raph.”

The remaining tendrils surged and beat angrily around them, and Michelangelo’s startled squawk and “Oof!” from the other side reminded Raphael that this really wasn’t the time or the place. But the guilt and frustration were so tangled in his chest that it felt like it was choking him, and all he could do was stumble forward and press a rough kiss to the corner of Leonardo’s tensed shoulder before backing away.

Leonardo’s stance shifted. He brought his swords up and looked away. “Hurry,” he said finally, and then he leapt into the fray.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Finally managed to pull up my socks and whip out a chapter. I hope you're all still enjoying it, and I'd love to hear if you are :) Happy holidays, everyone!


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